This collection of essays explores an innovative subject in the study of popular culture in colonial Latin America: household Catholicism as expressed through pious images and objects. The authors focus their studies on four cities in the viceroyalty of La Plata (Córdoba, Santa Fe, Salta, and Mendoza) between 1776, the year the viceroyalty was created, and 1810, the eve of independence. By using a research approach solidly grounded in archival work, the authors aim to assess the significance of a diversified set of handmade artifacts associated with domestic religious practices. Among other pious objects, these artifacts included figures and statues of saints, paintings, crucifixes, reliquaries, rosaries, and canvases, all mentioned in a sundry assortment of documents produced by both humble and prominent vecinos of the four selected cities. The authors appropriately consulted wills, dowries, inventories, and lawsuits, as well as documents covering inheritance hearings and assessments of property values. They also attempt to reconstruct the circulation of these objects within these local societies by using information provided by wills and dowries to trace the provenance and destination of selected artifacts.
Daisy Rípodas Ardanaz offers an engaging introduction to the subject in her preface. She provides the reader with an overview of the Tridentine dispositions governing the domestic use and worship of religious objects. Additionally, she includes a short yet interesting description of the prescriptions on the topic issued by Church authorities in contemporary Spain. Flowever, the subsequent essays do not altogether fulfill the expectations created by such a thoughtful preface, although they do offer an impression of the nature of provincial domestic Catholicism on the fringes of the Spanish empire. The sources reveal, for example, that reproductions of passages of Christ’s and the Virgin Mary’s earthly lives were common objects of domestic devotion. Devotees also kept statues and portraits of saints inside their homes, often selecting the image according to the given name of a family member (particularly the wife or child of a male household head) as a guarantee of providential protection. Additionally, the authors also note how the selection of domestic holy artifacts could also be influenced by the identity of the religious orders at work in the cities’ jurisdictions, or by local beliefs, recurrent natural disasters, occupations, and childbirth.
The examination of the data raises two noteworthy points. One relates to the circulation of these pious objects within urban societies. The authors’ findings suggest that objects of domestic devotion remained within families as a result of patterns of female inheritance. Another notable feature is the remarkable degree of homogeneity among the pious artifacts recorded in the four cities. Such homogeneity might be indicative of broader parameters of household Catholicism for the whole viceroyalty.
This study treats domestic religious practices, a remarkably interesting and yet unexplored subject in colonial Latin America. However, the specific essays focused on each of the cities limit themselves to meticulous description of the objects under analysis. In so doing, they fail to provide the reader with fuller interpretations and broader parameters of comparison. Nonetheless, the four studies successfully stress the significance of domestic artifacts for understanding forms of private spirituality. In sum, by showing Catholicism in the household arena, Imaginería y piedad privada offers an engaging and provocative change of perspective on religion in colonial Latin America.
